- A panel of housing experts say Michigan has talked a lot about the housing crisis, but not done a lot about it
- Panelists agreed there has to be a multifaceted approach to make housing more affordable
- The discussion is a culmination of several months of listening to readers about what issues matter most to them
DETROIT — Michigan has reached a tipping point on housing affordability, but no one on an expert panel hosted by Bridge Michigan claimed to have a silver bullet.
The panelists did agree the state has talked about the problem more than it has acted on it.
Affordability has been the central issue of Michigan’s elections in 2026, and obtaining affordability in Michigan’s housing sector was at the center of the inaugural Bridge Michigan Issues Summit last week. The event capped Bridge Listens, the news organization’s yearlong focus on top issues identified by more than 6,400 Bridge readers in survey responses.
About 1 in 4 respondents named affordability one of their top concerns. Bridge dug into the issue on readers’ behalf and found that, accounting for inflation, real median income fell nearly 2% between 2021 and 2024 in Michigan, while an estimated 1 in 5 Michiganders spend at least 30% of their income on housing costs.
More than 375 people attended the Issues Summit in Detroit, virtually or at a watch party at Alpena Community College. The summit also featured panels on health care, data centers and education.
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The panel discussion, “Political Promises and Pocketbook Realities: Housing, Wages and Affordability,” cast a spotlight on how home ownership is increasingly out of reach and housing instability is one the rise.
In the panel, audience members heard from:
- Dan Gilmartin, executive director and CEO of the Michigan Municipal League
- Timothy Hodge, associate professor of economics at Oakland University
- Natasha Pilkauskas, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan
- Chelsie Wilkinson, executive director, Room at the Inn
Michigan has created roughly 525 homes per 1,000 new jobs over the past decade, one of the lowest rates in the nation, Hodge said.
His arguments for a fix centered on increasing housing supply and reforming property taxes, which he said prevent the proper allocation of housing supply as retirees stay in large homes to avoid higher property taxes from buying a new home, leaving growing families with limited options.
Gilmartin said there’s been lots of talk, but “we don’t act” like there’s an ongoing housing crisis.
“Cost of materials, cost that goes into it, all the way through financing, all the way through availability, and really a comprehensive way of dealing with that is the only way we really make a dent in this,” Gilmartin said.
Wilkinson, the executive director of Room at the Inn, a homelessness services agency, said “it’s no secret that the tipping point for the population that I serve hit a long time ago.”
Her shelter and others in Michigan “are completely, completely full, and when we see that the housing market at any price point isn’t working for our communities, it’s really hitting the most vulnerable among us hardest and first.”
Policy fixes haven’t been easy to come by, either.
Hodge dismissed a proposed cut to the 6-mill state education tax as a gift to people who already own expensive homes, saying it does nothing for renters. He said the reason lawmakers avoid deeper tax reform is simple: “Politicians don’t want to touch it because it’s going to hurt most of their voting base.”
Zoning reform to ease regulatory burdens that may block housing also saw a mixed reception.
“Zoning by itself doesn’t move the needle, just because you know we would say permission does not equal production,” Gilmartin said. “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you can finance it.”
Pilkauskas advocated for interventions aimed at economic insecurity, like the expanded child tax credit.
“In my work there, we find for low-income families the place where we see the biggest sort of difference, other than food insecurity, is that they’re actually more likely to be able to afford their rent,” she said.
There’s a fair bit of high-end housing being built, but that means less building going into more affordable stock, Gilmartin noted.
While Hodge, Gilmartin and Pilkauskas all pushed for the building of more housing stock, Wilkinson, an advocate for the homeless, cautioned that “we will not build our way out of my side of the housing crisis.”
“It really takes every single component of a community to decide that housing is a human right and housing deserves to be a priority,” she added.
She praised a state law requiring larger landlords to accept housing vouchers but said loopholes and outdated fair-market rents undercut it.
Watch the entire Issues Summit here:
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